Posted on 08/05/2012 3:49:57 PM PDT by tselatysr
The epidemic of home foreclosures has been made far worse than necessary due to the banks' unwillingness to work with homeowners. Although Congress has passed numerous laws to force the banks to assist homeowners, the banks have found ways not to comply. The banks also brazenly break other laws to further their profits at the expense of homeowners, most recently by falsifying interest rates in the LIBOR scandal.
Regular middle class Americans everywhere have unjustly lost their homes to foreclosure. They ended up in homes they could not sell due to the Federal Reserve Board, not their own actions. The Fed manipulates interest rates in order to grow or shrink the economy. It kept rates artificially low several years ago for a lengthy period of time. At the same time, Congress relaxed the laws on lending. The Obama administration ordered banks to lend to risky borrowers or face lawsuits. Many people with poor credit bought homes who were clearly risky borrowers. A large number were issued subprime loans they could not afford, ensuring their default.
Once the defaults began in 2007, the abandoned homes flooded the housing market, driving down home values for everyone. This left most homeowners unable to sell their homes, since most homeowners have a sizable mortgage. Someone who bought a home with a mortgage for $200,000 saw the value of their home dip to as low as half of that. Upside down, there is no way for someone to sell their home without owing the bank a considerable amount.
As people began losing their jobs due to the recession, they could not downsize to a smaller house or apartment because of being upside down on their mortgages. Many tried to short sale their homes, in the hopes of walking away without owing anything. In order to force the banks to accept a short sale, homeowners had to play chicken and stop paying their mortgages. Other homeowners stopped paying their mortgages in hopes of getting a loan modification, relying upon laws that were passed requiring banks to work with homeowners on loan modifications.
Very few of these homeowners were able to save their homes from foreclosure. The banks routinely turned down their requests for loan modifications, for trumped-up excuses like not turning in enough information or ironically missing mortgage payments, a catch-22. The banks turned down their short sale offers, for equally invalid excuses like claiming perfectly reasonable offers were not a good deal, or losing their paperwork. Finally, when some homeowners began to see their home values bounce back this year, allowing them to sell, the banks would not give them a payoff amount but went ahead with foreclosure.
Under Obama's Homeowner and Stability Plan of 2009, the banks were given bonuses for each loan modification they implemented; $1,000 to the bank and $1,500 to the servicer. The banks put some homeowners in temporary "trial" loan modifications, collected the bonuses, then ultimately rejected the homeowners from permanent modifications and foreclosed on their homes. Half of the homeowners who entered the program were booted out. It soon became apparent that the program had been implemented to stave off foreclosures until after the 2010 election. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, architect of the 2009 Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, cruelly referred to the program as homeowners "foaming the runway" for the distressed banks looking for a safe landing. Neil Barofsky, former special inspector for TARP, has written a book exposing the fraud, entitled "Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street." Barofsky is a Democrat and contributor to Obama, but was so appalled by what he encountered that he went public with the scandal.
Of the $46 billion in federal aid directed to distressed homeowners under TARP, only 10 percent has been distributed. One of the programs, which allocates $2.7 in TARP funds to encourage lenders to write down or eliminate second liens when refinancing, has not helped a single homeowner. The Treasury Department never bothered establishing any goals for distribution of the funds. The Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program, HAMP, put into place to force banks to reduce the interest rate on homes for those who could not afford their mortgages, has helped hardly anyone. Fewer than one million homeowners are in the program, even though millions need assistance. It has been such a failure that House Republicans voted to terminate HAMP last year.
Meanwhile, as innocent people were losing their homes, the Obama administration awarded billions of dollars in bailouts to real estate speculators. The $700 billion government bailout intended to stabilize the economy, known as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, has gone almost entirely to the banks, not homeowners.
There is no such thing as a free market in the housing industry. The Fed regulates the banks by manipulating interest rates, and Congress, the president and the Treasury regulate what banks can and cannot do. It is painfully clear that the banks will behave unethically and illegally if they can get away with it. The banking system has become big government doing the bidding of big business. America is fast becoming more like Russia than the capitalist free market economy it once was.
The solution is to abolish the Fed. Without its manipulation of interest rates, the housing market will not have wide fluctuations, since people who cannot afford to buy homes will face free market interest rates, not artificially lowered ones. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-run lenders with a history of financial corruption, should also be abolished. Instead of Congress passing failed laws regulating the banks, banks should not be bailed out if they choose to issue risky home loans. Then when a bank goes under, innocent homeowners should have some kind of recourse to protect their homes, such as class-action lawsuits.
Americans who did nothing wrong are losing their homes as a result of irresponsible government enabling the banks. It is difficult to see how Obama can win reelection when one in seven homeowners is in default or foreclosure.
Article shared using the Free Republish tool on Tea Party Tribune.
It appears the idea was to not only destroy the banking economy, but make sure people lost their homes, too.
It’s not just Obama, folks - this was planned out and started by the Clintons.
I have NO empathy for people who thought they were getting something for nothing.
Someone who doesn’t honor their contract obligations isn’t exactly ‘innocent’. This probably belongs more properly on a democrat something-for-nothing site.
And the problem wasn’t set up by Obama. It was set up by the international bankers and their bought and paid for legislators from both parties.
This wreck was caused by do-gooders in D.C., not by the nation's bankers who ran their industry honestly and faithfully for over two centuries before the CRA.
This statement alone should keep one from reading any further. The LIBOR screwup was one of the banks quoting LOWER than actual rates paid to other banks.
This would lead to homeowners paying LOWER rates when their ARMS reset.
I personally know someone who bought too big a house with little down and a low-rate ARM.
Stupid to begin with.
Then, when the rate adjusted, she couldn’t pay the mortgage. Someone told her the bank would help her if she got two months behind on her payments, so she quit paying.
My thought at the time and now is that this is absurd.
Whatever happened to common sense? Think before you buy. Don’t buy more than you can afford. Read the small print. Live within your means. Be self-reliant and help others instead of expecting them to bail you out.
Ya know, if your goal was to destroy America financially, I can’t think of a better way to do it. Systematic and devious.
Well, that's what it was all about. Just like the administration is trying to get businesses not to give employees the required 60 days notice of intent to lay them off once the Bush tax cuts expire, ... to be received just before the November election.
Masking Obama's failed policies.
“As the banks drowned in the bad debt, they began to flail. These flailings have been mischaracterized by the anti-free marketers among us as dishonesty and greed.”
The banks sold nearly all the bad debt. The only banks who had difficulty were those who loaned many times more money then they had. When their bills came due they could not pay.
Bankers made billions and not one has gone to jail for proven fraud, forgery and numerous other crimes.
The Demoncrat Party & Cloward–Piven strategy
Obama is a thug who hates whites, uses blacks and loves Islam. He is a criminal and a treasonous traitor to our country.
How many banks are cashing in on the scam called PMI and then cash in again on the property?????
Banks and Government are stealing our money and freedom. The libs and RINOs work for the banks.
To all those “they get what they deserve” posters on here - just a word of caution.
Our bank tried to pull a fast one on us - they put partial excess payments I had made in an “advance” account (long story has to do with escrow).
Instead of counting this towards payments. They assured me it was all ok.
This happened for several months, when they slapped us with foreclosure.
They had me sending in paperwork for months, all the while assuring me it was all ok.
Finally had to go to court to straighten it all out.
If this lady claims to be Tea Party, then count me out.
The type of incendary language used sounds a lot more like it’s from Ralph Nadir or a Michael Moore movie.
Yes, the banks were bad for lending money to deadbeats - but that still doesn’t give the deadbeats the right to walk away from their obligations, as if they had nothing to do with it - ESPECIALLY after many, if not most, of these deadbeats “extracted equity” from their homes via additional mortgages.
There were a lot of people acted responsibly and REFUSED to go along with this scam - and I guess she expects us to pay off the deadbeats.
“This wreck was caused by do-gooders in D.C., not by the nation’s bankers who ran their industry honestly and faithfully for over two centuries before the CRA. “
I guess you’re entitled to your opinion. I just remember the S&Ls - not exactly honesty and faithfulness from the banking sector there.
Too many bad loans were made to people who had no business owning a home, Jimmy Stewart and `It’s A Wonderful Life’ to one side. As Mark Steyn points out in `After America’ the Obama administration pressured lenders to stand logic on its head and assume that home ownership made people responsible.
The other thing was the serial re-financing. People were treating their home like a Rolex watch and pawning it every few years. The problem is that the new appraised value wasn’t realistic and now they can’t sell without having to write a check, rather than accept one.
We’re grownups so let’s talk facts of economic life: If you can’t make your house payment with your payment being 31% or less than your gross income, then no government program can help you.
Loans to unqualified borrowers with bad credit histories; ARMs; no down payment & `walking around’ money to boot—this was a flying catastrophe that was enabled by Washington DC, Barney Frank and the Democratic party and just looking for a place to crash.
Thanks tselatysr. G’night all.
At a loss.
“The only banks who had difficulty were those who loaned many times more money then they had.”
Which is all of them. By definition banks lend far more than they have in liquid assets. Banks need only be capitalized to cover bad debt - something they've done well for centuries. When the amount of bad debt suddenly goes through the roof (due to govt interference in the market) and must be sold at a loss, the bank goes under.
“Bankers made billions...”
Only the politically connected - there's that govt interference again. So have car makers, oil barons, unions, etc. There is no industry immune to government corruption.
“...and not one has gone to jail for proven fraud, forgery and numerous other crimes.”
How many politicians or their buddies in ANY industry do you see going to jail for dishonest acts?
The average banker (the VAST majority) is no more greedy or dishonest than you or I. A lot of honest bankers went under in this government-created mess. Regarding the few bad eggs, it shouldn't surprise anyone that a few powerful bankers living in the pocket of hyper-empowered politicians and regulators were able the slink away with their golden parachutes.
Let's keep our eyes on the real target here and the real source of this problem. Next year, it'll be some other industry and the press will attempt to deflect criticism from the govt leviathan by fingering businessmen again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.